


A Rose By Any Other Name

by archea2



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Easter Eggs, Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, Halloween, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Mpreg, Storytelling, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has found the perfect name for their daughter. Greg is not convinced...</p><p>This started as a fill for the Sherlock kinkmeme, grew into (very light) mpreg, and is now turning into a fluffy family chronicle. If you like kid!fic and S/L established romance but don't like mpreg, just skip to chapter 3!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What's in a Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grassle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/gifts).



> Crossposted here to celebrate France's new laws on gay adoption and dedicated to my lovely beta Grassle.

"Morgana, obviously."  
  
" _What?_ "  
  
Sherlock's hand lingers on Greg's stomach, rising at intervals for a soft pat which Greg suspects is half seal of approval, half testing their tiny daughter's knee-reflex. All in all endearing, even if they'll have to wait another week or two prior to knowing if their kid will be a Beckham or a Donovan.  
  
Less endearing is Sherlock's conviction that their child should be called after a woman who, if Greg's memory serves him right, was a witch, a serial adulterer and a busybody whose mayhem in the Arthurian political sphere would make an Adler fall to her knees and beg for a tutorial. Twice.  
  
"Because it's the logical answer that will save us precious time." The pats are getting brisker. "For one thing, every elder child in my family is bestowed a M- name."  
  
"Your dad said I was to call him Zed."

  
Greg's first interview with Professor Holmes had been a pleasant surprise. The burly, seven-foot world expert on natural energies had looked him up and down, enfolded him in a bear-hug, boomed out an atrocious pun on sons-in-law-and-order, and offered him an A1 scotch which Greg had regretfully declined.  
  
"Hm-hm. Short for Melchizedek, so Mother made him delete most of it."  
  
"Yeah? Well, every Lestrade sprog gets a one-syllable name. What d'you make of that, genius?"  
  
" _Your_  father told me to call him Richard."  
  
"Hmmm, yeah. Da wasn't too happy with my gran's choice either."  
  
Sherlock bumps his forehead against Greg's shoulder. Greg braces himself: the feline approach works only too well as a rule.  
  
"And then, think of the memento."  
  
"Of...?"  
  
"Well. We did conceive her in St Barts' -"  
  
"Jesus, Sherlock! The poor kid doesn't need to know about that."  
  
"Oh, we don't have to tell her all at once. If I recall, Mother did wait until I was five."  
  
"Sherlock,  _I_  don't need-"  
  
"The partial solar eclipse. April 1976."  
  
"... Riiight. No wonder if-"    
  
"And since Moriarty was actually responsible for bringing us together -"  
  
"By forcing you to enact the trashiest, piss-poorest corpse in the history of frauds? You totally deserved that slap."

  
(Though Molly now keeps a nervous vigil near the bench every time he comes over to check on a post-mortem.)  
  
"- it would be a happy coincidence that our child should be named after him. Partly, that is. Oh, don't look at me - it's not as if I'd promoted Jemima."  
  
" _Sherlock._ "  
  
"Pleaaase?" By now, Sherlock's lower tones have plummeted to a cross between melting butterscotch and a cello in rut.  
  
"We'll see," Greg says weakly, even as Sherlock's breath quickens against his ear and a Conradian shudder trickles down the Inspector's spine. _The hormones! The hormones!_ He's a lost man if Sherlock targets the hormones.

But Sherlock's hand is stroking the nascent belly curve, a tender, unrelenting touch carried on and lower down, and still lower, until Greg's last lucid thought is that he must really, in their child's best interests, nominate John Watson as a godfather.


	2. A Rose By Any Other Name

" ’Tis all the curry’s fault," Lestrade repeats, and has to bite on his breath as the next contraction doubles him forward. Sweet Jesus. On a cracker. With mar- _no, no, don't think of marmite right now_.

Nor of all the things he’s done in and on that chair, with his feet up the desk, with or without Sherlock’s long form pretzeled around the back. He's slept in that chair, more times than he can reckon. Crashed down. Wept on the sly. Made love and eaten donuts (on separate occasions).

  
And, as of tonight seven p.m., entered labour. Yeah. In his desk chair.

 

"Curry, my sainted balls." Tob Gregson, pressing back on his shoulders none too gently. "Lookit you, man. Nine months gone and looking like you've swallowed Arsenal’s signature ball. What business d’you have to be here? Shhhh, save your breath. Yeah, Sal got yours, didn’t text back because she’s out in some arse pocket in Hackney, arresting that bloke. Well, twin. Hope for your sake Holmes deduced the right one." 

From where he sits, Greg can spot John and Anderson, both flush-faced from the heat of their ongoing debate and, in Doctor Watson’s case, a little extra fuel. They don’t seem to have made much progress since John waddled in with a hearty "God, I’m _pissed_. Where’s the gravid dad?" Now Anderson is waving his arms about, abject horror written all down his face, moaning that he never volunteered for _this_. 

"Of course I've got the right man. Greg, your C.S. sends his congratulations, and not to forget the health insurance form..."

Ah. The office door has now swung open on the tall, dark, _pink_ form of the other expectant dad. Who, sensing that Anderson might, after all, be his co-worker for the night, has taken compromise to unheard-of levels and donned a hairnet. _You do the crime, love, you gotta do the time_ , Lestrade thinks with a frayed chuckle that draws everyone’s attention back to him. _Fuck_. 

"... and registering form, oh, and there’s one for paid parental leave, and the Met’s childcare options, and..." 

"Attention, please! Will everyone on the force kindly step back, we’re going for a peridural."  John, Greg suspects, is thoroughly enjoying his role as Anderson's executive coach. Judging from Anderson’s face, it is clear that he's not complying from the call of duty, but only so he can order Sherlock about. 

"Oh," Sherlock whispers, letting the paperwork fall onto the office floor and bending suddenly over Greg’s belly. "You have a coffee-bean navel!" 

... Well, it was _fairly_ dark in the Morgue that day. And Sherlock prefers to do it by night, so Greg gulps back the tease and smiles at him instead. 

What seems like hours later, he is still smiling between two howls. Sherlock has taken to counting prime numbers aloud and backward from 971, whether to give Greg a focus or quench his own panick is unclear. Someone’s brewing coffee in Donovan’s office and the smell is an unexpected support, though Greg suspects he will pay for it once his lass is born. 

 _C’mon love_ , he wills himself to think, and feels Sherlock’s hand, incredibly whole and firm despite Greg's best attempts to maul it in the process, squeeze his in return. _C'mon, sweetie. We need to part, you and I, so he can see what a beauty you are. Bet you got his legs, too. There, give us a kick._  

"Almost there." John’s voice is admirably steady, leading Greg to wonder briefly how many births took place among the Fifth Northumberland Fusilliers. The Old and Bold, eh. "You’re doing fine, Greg, just keep breathing." 

‘’ 'Lock – Sal –"

"Right here," another voice chips in, and Sally somehow coalesces behind the crime scene tape – oh, clever, Tob. She’s wearing a head cap too, and if Greg's wobbly sight can be trusted, dusty pink suits her best of them all. "Fr - Holmes nailed it again, sir. It was Julian, not Marco. He confessed the moment we showed up." 

"Did you – ah – pull him in?" 

"With all due respect, sir" – Anderson is fairly sweating between his thighs, a situation that Greg promises himself will never, ever be renewed, however extended his family turns out to be – "now is more about _pushing"_. 

There is a sudden flare of pain, as if the lower part of his spine had just been unzipped with unnecessary force, but it fades out when his ear catches a sound. The sound is not unfamiliar to Greg – he's heard it before, on the silver screen, at family dos, and even once on his webcam, when his favorite cousin moved to Sidney just before her third. But this is entirely fresh, a brand new breath being shaped and expelled tentatively by tiny lungs, and for one moment, it becomes his breath, his beginnings; a pattern inverted, as he commits his life - both their lives - to hers.

Sherlock stands speechless at his side, still holding his hand. Then Greg feels him shift and fidget, and knows, before the pull it takes to move his head, that he’s been given their small daughter to hold on the crook of his arm.

"Morgana," Sherlock says tentatively.

"Mordag," John corrects him at once, carrying on for a bemused Donovan: "Scottish for Sea Warrior. And before you or anyone else asks, MorMor is a no-no." 

"If there’s any justice in this world" – Jesus, even Anderson’s _voice_ sounds sweaty – "she ought to be Metropolita." 

But Greg cuts across all of them, his eyes straining into focus as he looks up at Sherlock and the little face, like a smooth furled rose, nestled against Sherlock’s shirt sleeve. Hoarsely, joyfully, Greg speaks out.

"... Miracle."

Another enduring silence. Greg lets it encircle everything that’s good and great in the moment – down to Sherlock’s hand, holding tight, as if their daughter was a new gravitational force, pulling him up, and Lestrade a time-honored piece of ballast. 

Her breath and their stillness reach out to each other, shaping his peace of heart. Life has been shared; two have become three; time for sleep to become, too. Greg closes his eyes and lets _Miracle_ usher him into his rest, Sherlock’s lips a soft hum against his brow.

 

[A/N: in case anyone wonders what the poor kid ended up being called, the answer is Miranda.]


	3. The Story of a Story

Once upon a time, Sherlock tried his hand at fairytales. That was an Experiment, complete with a Control Group (made of one grey-templed senior officer and one not-housekeeper with her ear glued to her oven conduit) and Repeated Trials (three).

It was also a Complete Flunk. While Sherlock was pliant enough to suspend disbelief and discuss winged beings within the twenty minutes allotted to Miranda’s storytime, he found Grimm and Perrault lacking in precision and overexerted himself to fill the blank. By the time he finished cataloguing every curare-modified serum that  _might_ produce catatonia in an underage female subject from a prick on the hand, Miranda was not only wide-eyed, but staunchly refusing to close them again.

The Experiment was called to an end, warm milk carried up from 221A, variants debated, and Greg, once he had patted three sets of shoulders better, promised to take up where Sherlock and Claude Bernard had left the tale hanging. 

Greg, ever a man of his word, tried his honest best to deliver the precious ending. And so he would have, if exhaustion and adrenaline had let him fulfill this final duty of the day. Instead, Detective Inspector Lestrade leapt straight into the woods, led his stallion at a hypercaffeinated pace that would have earned him a word or two from his brethren in Traffic Unit, jogged up the tower stairs, spotted the bed, turned a page, and keeled over snoring on his daughter’s pillow. 

Prising him loose from the duvet was difficult enough. Telling Miranda that no, princes were not allowed poppers in their milk before they set out on a quest proved even harder. 

"Not Helping, dear," was Mrs Hudson’s comment to Sherlock on both occasions.

No one was truly surprised when she was nominated as the next contestant. Mary and John had volunteered, but Mary’s schedule as a nurse was just as problematic as Greg’s, and John’s idea of storytelling was to read aloud from his blog, a motion vetoed by Greg and Sherlock with equal fervour.

Mrs Hudson, that wisest of women, told Miranda that they should leave fairies aside for an evening or two and focus instead on the animal kingdom. “Sweet little beasties,” she offered seductively. Miranda’s moue clearly said that she still felt cheated out of woodland shenanigans. “Sweet little beasties in a sweet, sweet wood,” came the edit. 

"Boring," Miranda declared after giving the sweet, sweet wood due consideration.

"In the dark," Mrs Hudson added hastily. "With danger a-plenty, but a very sweet happy ending. And gorgeous food."

Miranda agreed that danger and hot food were good enough premises, and the story began.

———

"Sorry I’m late," Greg whispered later on, rubbing a rain-slippery cheek to his husband’s. "You wouldn’t believe what I’ve had to deal with - doctor confessing to killing his wife with a  _chicken_. Daft sod let ten years go, then went and boasted of it in a pub, thinking himself safe. Guess who reminded him those ten years don’t start when the crime is committed, but when it's found out? I - what?” For Sherlock was putting a finger to his lips while using his signature scarf to dry Greg’s hair and ruffle it up a bit on the sly.

"Shhh. Come and listen to this."

Greg stepped out of his shoes and, together, they padded along the corridor to Miranda’s door. Mrs Hudson’s soft, Royal Albert vowel patterns could be heard trickling out of the room.

"And the Badger opened his door. He’d been asleep, of course, as any creature in their sound mind would have been at this time of night, but he got up and went to see who was there. Because he was a bit gruff, but the kindest, most generous soul in the dark heart of the woods."

"What’s a badger?" Miranda’s sleepy voice replied.

"Why, it’s a lovely animal, dear. Very tenacious, very ordered - it’s all cleanliness and goodliness with them, they don't put up with cluttered kitchens and mess and if your Papa thinks I’ve missed that stain on my new…yes. As I said, a lovely,  _neat_  species. And such beautiful grey fur. I'm sure Papa will show you one on his computer if you ask him.”

"Did he let Ratty and Mole in?"

"Of course he did. The moment he saw the Rat, he knew that here was a poor lost thing in need of food and comfort, and he forgot all about sleep. He cared very much for Rat, you see. They’d known each other for a while, the tale says, and Rat’s first instinct in trouble was to go and seek out Badger. And Badger -"

"-never disappointed him," Sherlock murmured.

”- made a big fire, and took care of Mole’s wound for him. And he gave them a nice hot meal, too, complete with curry masala, pizza and banana fritters. Which is an atrocious diet, really, but even the best of badgers have their little flaws.”

"Oi!" Greg protested feebly.

"What did Ratty say?"

"Oh, a _lot_. Ratty was the garrulous type. Mole was a strong-and-silent little creature, a mole of few words, but Ratty was only too given to rattle away about himself and his clever deeds. See? That’s how he got his name!"

"Etymologically wrong," Sherlock said, but Greg could make his smile out in the corridor's penumbra.

"And then?" Miranda’s voice was thinner, the words slurred together into a soft release of breath.

"Badger listened very patiently. And he never said ‘I told you so’, or ‘when will you listen', or even 'blast!', which he’d have been perfectly entitled to. No, he just sat in his big arm-chair -"

"Like…Daddy's…chair?"

"The very same. With his paws crossed on his chest. And when the food was eaten, and the tale was told" - Mrs Hudson was careful to slow down, lowering her own voice - "the Badger showed Rat and Mole where they could sleep. It was a humble home, but very nice and cosy, and Ratty was so glad and relieved, he - "

Miranda’s next interruption was too frayed by sleep to be audible. Not so Mrs Hudson’s startled silence.

"Well, I. Oh, my. I’m not  _quite_  sure animals shared a bed in those days, dearie. They had plenty of straw, I mean bedding, to keep them warmy-snuggly, and -“

But before anyone could stop him, Sherlock had stepped into the pink-walled room and bent down to the tender round shell of their child's ear.

"Every night," he whispered, while Greg nodded unseen from the door. Sharing the promise and the plea, and the unspoken agreement that in their hard, too-often fairyless routine, there was enough charm to hold the dark woods at bay, night in night out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mrs Hudson's bedtime story comes from chapter 4 ("Mr Badger") in Kenneth Grahame's _The Wind in the Willows_. The doctor-and-chicken story is a true tale, told to me by a forensic friend. You might hear more of it some day.


	4. Who Framed Roger Ribbet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween is looming close and Miranda knows exactly what she wants.
> 
> (All my thanks to Grassle for betaing this in one go!)

 

In Mr Chatterjee’s restaurant window are two papier-mâché bats, holding up a special BINDHI BEL-FRY menu between their tiny claws. The bats look a bit cross-eyed and out of their depths – or dungeon – but they, with the first fizz of cold and the fact that half the front gardens in Marylebone have succumbed to acute orange ganglionitis, are a sure sign that October is on its last legs.

 

Sadly, so is Sherlock’s patience as he tows his small daughter into 221B and shuts the door behind them with a loud "tiger tail" back-kick, learnt from Lhassa’s finest six years ago.

 

"And I say _no_." His corresponding growl would probably make Lhassa’s finest bow their heads in dismay, those wise, wise men who never had to wrestle a five-year-old's logic all the way back from school. He’d like to see them try.

 

"But you can’t. Because you said _anything_. When I got a star on my report. And now I’ve told all my friends, and anything is bigger than no, and I was _good_ , and you said it _first_."

 

"Your father did." Sherlock plumps Miranda down on the first step of stairs and squats before her while she holds out a red gumboot – dark pastel red when Mrs Hudson is about and intent on traipsing all over the principle of noncontradiction – for him to pull off. "He has a thing about goodness. I don't. What I said was that real stars don't have branches and points. And that handing out celestial tokens as a reward for you to "be good", which is school Newspeak for keeping your mouth shut and eating those _ludicrous_ fish fingers" (Sherlock and Mrs Ondaatje, the Head Teacher, have already had words on the wording of school menus) "was either terminally inept or State Jesuitism at its best. Right foot, please. I'm beginning to revise my opinion."

 

"You’re mean." Miranda’s star of goodness is on a fast-collapsing track. "You’re the leanest meanest cranky-lanky meanie in this our vale of tears, and I don’t mean maybe. I’m asking Daddy."

 

"That’s it." And Sherlock stretches himself up into his lankiest, crankiest, six-feet-above show of paternity. He then folds his arms awfully, only to unfold them and grasp his child before she fast-forwards herself into their flat door. "No more afternoons out with Uncle Mycroft unless closely supervised by myself, and that goes for the next fifteen years. Thirteen. Er, eleven." Greg might have a point about his deleting England’s age of majority. "And no Halloween treat for rude, _repetitive_ little girls."

 

Miranda’s wail bursts loose and loud.

 

"Holy Jiminy!" Their flat door opens with a rattle as Greg works the button one-handedly, his other hand muffled in an oven glove, and stares from one to the other. "What’s all that ruckus for?"

 

Two voices, one still vibrant with paternal outrage, the other a shaky treble, set out to explain what the ruckus is for. This, of course, only raises the ruckus to an exponential power. Greg takes it like a man, until his informants have to pause for a breath, and, in one case, a sniffle. Then he takes the baking glove off, gives the back of his neck a contemplative scratch, and tackles the first plaintiff.

 

"She wants a _what_?"

 

"A corpse," Sherlock repeats through gritted teeth. "A cadaver, a goner, a gentleman of the deceased persuasion, post-mortem incarnate (or should I say vitally challenged), a big sleeper, a D. B., a stiff. Your daily bread, Greg Lestrade, earned with the sweat of my brow. Can I make myself any clearer? Apparently, Miranda has told everyone at St Vincent’s Hall that Daddy and Papa are taking her out to a crime scene for Halloween."

 

"Because I’ve been good," Miranda sobs in. "What’s a corpse?"

 

"Jesus, sweetie." Greg leans forward to stroke his thumb across a plump wet cheek. It still brings an _oh_ to his breath, to see what a quick-change girl she is; how every passing month seems to bloom her into more and brighter, overriding life, like Sherlock’s violin on an ascending scale. Thin legs on a crescendo, too: when he takes her to school on his shoulders under the crisp grey sky, on those too rare mornings of he and she, his child’s left foot dangles over his heart. But her face, under the bobbed brown hair with its hint of Vernet russet, clings to the roundness of its baby years. They fit together, the face and the legs, making invisible child beauty that tickles Greg’s heart with old and new love as he blows softly on a flushed cheekbone. _M’girl_. Five years’ wonder. Who wants to go and play at a crime scene.

 

"Whatever it is, it’s _not_ a Brownie point for good conduct." Greg looks up past Miranda’s head and, meeting his husband’s eyes, feels his own becoming a little oblique and shifty. He hurries on to add, "And I thought you wanted to dress up for Halloween?"

 

" _Everyone_ dresses up for ’loween." Miranda’s eyes are brimming again. "I don’t want to be everyone. Blossom Boo Owen is making an evil rag doll with her Gran. And Minnie McAllisters says _her_ daddies are taking her to a Death Eaters’ Tea Party."

 

"Minnie McAllister." Sherlock, his posture of authority palpably relaxing, speaks the name in dark and ill-boding tones. Sherlock, Greg knows, is convinced that it was Minnie McAllister who ate the marzipan squirrel on Miranda’s last birthday cake. He could have proved it, too, if only the Lestrades’ Code of Honour allowed for cheek-swab saliva tests on a house guest. Sherlock has kept a watchful eye on Minnie McAllister ever since. That squirrel was 3¼ inches high with a lovely glaze of burnt sugar,  _and it belonged to Miranda._

Who, having spotted her advantage, is pushing it shamelessly. "She said you wouldn’t, and I said you would, and  now I’ll be the only one with nothing to tell. Even Daisy Ondaatje is going to McDonald’s, and she’s four and a half."

 

"What’s that got to do with –"

 

"Clowns," Sherlock obliges. "Oh well, there’s always the -"

 

"No."

 

"But you don’t even know which case I’m – "

 

" _No_."

 

"But we can’t let Minnie McAllister  - "

 

"Sherlock." It may be do or die in toddlerocracy, but Greg is not about to take his child to work, not this close to Halloween, not while there’s a fair chance that Toby will be crashing his office with a tub of red food colouring. "I’m not bringing my kid to a bloo – to a bleed – I’m not bringing her anywhere near a crime scene. However, since her honour is at stake -" Greg pulls up his shoulders and faces the invisible Minnie with a scowl. Sherlock is never wrong. " – I’m gonna bring a crime scene to our kid. Gimme ten."

 

He dives back into the kitchen before Sherlock can say a word and resurfaces with a pack of HobNobs. "And give her one."

 

In the end, it takes three biscuits, two glasses of milk and Miranda asking Sherlock why there is no ham in hamburgers since there is cheese in cheeseburgers before Greg reappears. He is beaming and answers Sherlock’s inquisitive tilt of eyebrow with a rakish twitch of his own. "If you’ll step right here...Careful with the police tape, Missy. Here, let me give you a hand."

 

The police tape is blue – Greg is a vocational stickler when it comes to procedure – and on the rag-end of worn. It has been tied to the back legs of two of their kitchen stools now standing guard on either side of the entrance. Sherlock, who recognized the cord on his dressing gown, gives a martyred roll of eyes. But Miranda’s are bright with excitement as she crosses into their kitchen, now bathed in pallid chiaroscuro, courtesy of dusk and Greg’s decision to switch off the overhead light and line up a row of tea lights on the kitchen shelf.

 

"Greg Lestrade, crime scene designer," Sherlock murmurs, taking Miranda up in his arms so she can enjoy a panoramic view of the counter. "Who knew."

 

"Man of many hats, me." Greg grins at the answering groan before raising an absent walkie-talkie to his lips. "Good job, Sally, I’ll take over from here. Well, Mr and Miss Holmes, this is a sorry business indeed and I’ll need all the help I can get to solve it. First, let me introduce Mr Grater, who met with a grim and gritty end while taking a walk near his native village of Gratin-in-the Glen." Greg snaps his fingers at the oven, the only alternative source of light. "According to our team forensic, death took place ten to fifteen minutes ago."

 

Mr Grater, lying on its back on the counter with a few yellow tendrils still dramatically protruding from his stomach, is a sad view indeed. Miranda giggles.

 

"Can I eat the cheese, Daddy?"

 

"Not yet, love. That would be tampering with the chain of evidence."

 

"What’s –"

 

"You ask Papa." _Game on_ , Greg’s eyes tell Sherlock’s, sparkling brown and mischievous in a candlelight that makes him appear ten years younger. "He’s an expert in crime scene behaviour, though I’m glad to say he usually leaves the corpse uneaten."

 

 _What’s happened to all work and no play_ , Sherlock’s eyes flash back in wry amusement. "At least I’m not the one who’ll be eating my words by the end of the case. Please tell me you didn’t let Anderson question the pepper pot?"

 

"Hush, you. Primary evidence suggested that Mr Grater was alone when he met his dark and dreary fate, but Sergeant Donovan, with her customary speed and efficiency, has rounded up an eye-witness. Can you see her, Mia?"

 

Miranda hesitates, then points to the tubby presence whose matchstick arm is designating a brown ring on the counter, inches from the late Mr Grater.

 

"Absolutely. Little Miss Potato here was coming back from an ap- _peel_ _ing_ -ly boring evening at her auntie’s when she found Mr Grater. She tried to help him to his feet, but it was too late: he merely grumbled a few words and left this world for the next. Ah, well. Graters gonna grate."

 

"Next time, remind me to tell our daughter to ask for a _pun-free_ crime scene," Sherlock mutters. But Miranda hasn’t heard him; she’s leaning sideways to tug at her Daddy’s sleeve.

 

"There’s something ticking," she whispers. "It’s very loud."

 

"That would be Mr Roger Ribbet protesting his innocence." Greg wraps an arm around Sherlock and daughter, turning them about until they’re facing the kitchen table. The large frog-shaped timer, a present from Mrs Hudson, is ticking very loudly indeed, perhaps because it is trapped under an upside-down colander. "We’re detaining him pending further inquiries, meaning he’s not allowed to go back to Mrs Ribbet and their little Ribbets until we’re certain he didn’t do it."

 

"But why?"

 

"See that ring over there, near Mr Grater? Sergeant Anderson says it’s the exact diameter of Mr Ribbet’s base. And then, of course, there’s the small matter of Mr Grater having – "

 

" – croaked in dire and dubious circumstances," Sherlock completes. Despite his best attempts at remaining aloof, he is entering into the spirit of the game. "I take it Mr Ribbet doesn’t have an alibi?"

 

"Afraid not. Mr Ribbet claims to have been" – Greg takes a deft step towards their fridge and flips through the magnet notebook – "moistening his gullet over at the Mash and Blender, but it was a very _mixed_ crowd tonight, and nobody remembers seeing him at the bar."

 

"Hmm." Sherlock, still carrying Miranda, stretches a long arm over the counter and rubs at the brown ring with his forefinger. He licks it and nods. "Do you mind if I have a few words with the suspect, Inspector?"

 

"He’s all yours." Greg flips the colander aside. Without a word of commiseration for Mr Ribbet’s present situation, Sherlock grabs him, upends him, sniffs at the ring-shaped base of the timer and sets him back on the table. "Just as I thought. Let me tell you what happened, Miranda. Mr Anderson saw a dark-coloured ring _here_ , found a ring that was dark _there_ , added two and two together and, true to self, got thirty-eight. Our friend Roger is steeped in brown ale, reasonably enough given his alibi. But this –" Sherlock points theatrically at the crime scene while bouncing Miranda higher on the hip – "is Orange Pekoe. Greg, you’re looking for a specimen of either sex, preferably rotund, with a 82 mm outer diameter, a completely unimaginative approach to murder and a long story of addiction to theine. Miranda, whoever did this is round, not too big and likes tea. Happy?"

 

"Nope." Greg shakes his head, his hilarity all too visible in the pale light. "I need me more data, genius, or I’ll be pulling in half of Britain's  _crookery_ with a description like this."

 

"Well..." Sherlock’s eyes are roaming slowly across the dim-lit scene when he’s interrupted by Miranda’s cry. "Papa, the teapot’s gone!"

 

"Quite right" and "That’s my girl!" cross courses in the now vanilla-scented air as Miranda points to the upper shelf, where the tea lights’ tottering auras are lighting up an empty space.

 

"Very suspicious indeed," Greg chuckles. "Our teapot’s on the run...but where?"

 

"The kitchen sink, apparently. How _utterly_ depraved." Sherlock shows Miranda where the teapot is. "Careful, Mia. Arresting criminals is a citizen’s right, but you’ll get in trouble with Daddy if you break the new suspect."

 

"There’s a spoon with it," Miranda says in puzzled tones, while Greg hastens to retrieve the pot. "Why is there a spoon, Daddy?"

 

"Or, more to the point, who’s the spoon?" Sherlock has picked up the accessory to the crime and is examining it, his head angled to the side. "Stainless steel. Interesting." He places the spoon next to the cheesegrater. "Would I be very far off the mark in saying a close relative of the deceased? Statistics would favour a spouse, but – "

 

"His _sister_ ," Greg edits quickly, letting ethics have one over on statistics for tonight. There will be time enough for Miranda to become acquainted with the seedier aspects of their trade. "Well, well. Looks like my very own Deducing Duo have even managed to root out a motive for the crime."

 

The Deducing Duo turn to him with one accord and wide-eyed inquiry.

 

"Oh, come on. You’re burning, really." Greg tries to keep in character, but can’t help laughing at the silliness of it all. "Sweetie, what’s your favourite rhyme?"

 

"Hey diddle diddle," Miranda answers at once.

 

"Because it has a cat and a violin" – Greg strokes Sherlock’s arm in the half-dark – "and a moon and a cow, and... "

 

"Oh! And the dish ran away with the spoon!" Miranda’s excitement has reached a new plateau, though she’s frowning next, looking at the culprit and creasing her silk-smooth brow. "But it’s a teapot, not a dish."

 

"You gotta cut me some creative slack, sweetie." Greg waves the semantics away with a reckless flourish. "Obviously, they were stopped on their way by Mr Grater, who didn’t want them to marry. You see, Mr Teapot wasn’t from Gratin-in-the-Glen, which is a very rich and trendy place. _Crème de la crème_ resort, as Mrs H would say. I’m afraid he lost his – ah, thank you, Sherlock – head in this sad business, though there might be attenuating circumstances. There." Greg fixes the lid back over the pot and gives his Deducing Duo a reward hug-and-kiss, just as a shrill staccato beep erupts in the kitchen.

 

"Don’t start, Miranda; that was only Friend Roger learning the good news," Sherlock observes while Greg wheels around to turn off the oven and switch the main lights back on in one motion. "Let’s hope he doesn’t hop straight back to the Mash and Blender to celebrate. Well, Greg. My congratulations for a most...imaginative scene crime. Shall I take my co-consultant to wash her hands?"

 

But Miranda is squirming in obvious displeasure at having to leave the scene, until Sherlock has to set her down.

 

"What’s up, love?" Greg asks anxiously, just as Sherlock chimes in with "Problem?" God, she can’t be upset, can she? Not when he took every precaution he could think of... "Something wrong?" For Miranda is pointing once more at their capsized cheese grater.

 

"Can you make him alive again? Please? It’s sad, when someone dies for good."

 

In the long tick that follows, it takes more courage than they thought possible to turn their heads and look at each other under the pool of golden light. But when they do, the commotion of love is here again, rising in their chests with the same incandescent strength that saw them through that one chaotic day years ago, the day that began by ending everything only to catapult itself into a resurrection and, later on, a birth and a miraculous new start. Greg shuts his eyes and gropes across the Formica, fingers curled too tight around the grater until Sherlock’s hand is covering his, doubling his painful grasp. Together, they set Mr Grater back on his feet, his long square form upward again.

 

Sherlock rasps his throat and detaches his forehead from Greg’s. "Right. Dinner?"

 

"Hands first, dinner next." Greg draws in a harsh breath through his nose and turns to Miranda. "And then, bedtime. It’s Halloween tomorrow, sweetie. Better catch on some sleep in case you change your mind about dressing up."

 

Miranda, always her Papa’s daughter, has already leapt to a new conclusion. "I have. I want to be a Mad Princess Scientist!"

 

"Oh, then I’m the one to consult." Sherlock winks, though his hand is lingering in the small of Greg’s back. "Daddy would tell you that I qualify on all counts. Come, Miranda. Bathroom it is."

 

Greg doesn’t want to let either of them move out of his sight, ever again, but he smiles and walks to the door to take the stools away. "Be quick and be back," he says simply and watches Sherlock stop on the threshold while Miranda rushes out into their living room.

 

"Always," Sherlock says and kisses Greg’s mouth hard and true across the warm smell of cream, cheese and _now_.

 


	5. Children, Go Where I Send Thee (1/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very, very belated Christmas chapter for this 'verse. It's turned out a bit of a monster fic, so I'm posting it in two parts. Title borrowed from an old traditional African American carol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This 'verse was planned and begun before S3, so the Holmes parents are fairly different from their BBC counterparts.

Greg is still asleep.

****

As is Miranda one seat behind, her tangerine head bobbing with the ups and downs of the road, while Sherlock drives them past the hills and falling meadows of West Sussex. The inside of the car is filled with music, oddly in tune with the rugged-sweet, snowy countryside outside the car’s windows.

 

If Miranda were awake, the odds are solid that she’d be asking them where the snow comes from, then where water comes from, then yes, Papa, but where does _Imogen_ come from, and finally (because there is no stopping Miranda the Menace in full Q &A mode) why God make didn't make bats penguins so they could hang down from icicles. But the violin in the car comes from an old-fashioned tape that can be trusted always to put Miranda to sleep. The tape itself did not come from a store; neither is it the usual medley of pitter-patter rains, dolphin squeaks and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s dance. Instead, it steers a rather unusual zigzag between _Arsenal, We’re On Your Side_ , Johann Sebastian Bach and _We Wish You A Merry Christmas_ , only to stop half-score in the last one and take a sharp dive into _Smoke Gets In Your Eyes_.

 

“You big undercover softie.” (His husband’s grunt of a laugh.)

 

Then a trail of wistful, haunting notes, that come out with a fizz and a crackle because the tape is no longer young. The tape is eight months older than Miranda, and Greg, with a heart’s pang and a heart’s warm crackle, can still remember when he first took it out from layers of duct tape and brown paper, and a row of Serbian stamps, back when he lived in a half-emptied 221B. Mrs Hudson had found him an old player, and Greg had listened to the tape day after day. In the early mornings before work,  in the blue gloom of the evenings, and still after the Met doctors told him to back off and take it easy. He'd lain on Sherlock’s sofa and played the tape over and over again, waiting out the long weeks before Sherlock could _execute_ Moriarty’s legacy and fly home to him. To them.

 

It has taken many turns of the road to bring them here, where the country landscape is closing in on them, tucking one side of the car  with frosted grass and hazelwood as it bumps them down a narrow lane.

 

“Oh!” Miranda, always a light sleeper, is already pressing her pink putty nose to the glass. “Look, papa! _Snow_!”

 

“First name Clyde, born 1926, once the world’s leading forensic analyst, famous for his skeletal confirmation of Billy the Kid,” Sherlock mutters as the lane swells into a clearing. “What? It’s never too soon to acquaint our child with the wonders of this world.”

 

Miranda, never to be daunted, is bouncing in her seat. “And _trees_!”

 

“Yes, well spotted, Mia.”

 

“And there’s Uncle Mycroft in a fur hat! Look! And Big Daddy in the snow, and Big Mummie, and – and – a big dog?

 

“Dear Lord, they’ve dug out Mad _Mémé_ Vernet.” Sherlock scowls at the small figure in a shaggy brown coat, whom Mrs Holmes is now shepherding back into the house, and backs the car under a pine tree. “As if our festive quota of relatives wasn’t high enough. At least she’ll keep Mycroft out of pudding range – last time she came, he had to leave the table twice and fake-ring the Vatican for her. She thinks she’s a saint, probably for letting Mummie marry into _les rosbifs_. And since she doesn’t trust the Curia to canonise her properly when the time comes, she’s planning her afterdeath herself.”

 

“Runs in the family, so I’ve ha-haaaaa-heard.” A yawning Greg leans forward to stop the music while, backstage, Sherlock is wrestling a pinwheel of arms and stockinged legs. "Muffle up, sweetie. It’s minus four waiting for you out there."

****

"I haven’t come for the _weather_." Miranda’s tone is highly offended. "I’ve come for Christmas!"

****

"On its very first day, too," Professsor Holmes booms out as Miranda, bundled in a white dufflecoat and scarf, runs towards her grandparents. The grey-haired woman and the man with grey-and-marmalade hair, his Irish roots still showing in his beard and whiskers, both standing a bit taller and wider than the rest of them like the King and Queen on old medieval tapestries. Though Zed Holmes is now bending his knee for Miranda to put her foot on and clamber all the way up to the safe crook of his arm. "Up you go, little snow partridge, and give your pear-tree a kiss. Isn’t it lucky you like white and I like green?"

****

" _Ma_ Miranda, my Mandy, _mia_ Mia!" A radiant Mrs Holmes kissses the round cheek twice for good measure. "And such a beautiful coat. Did you chose it with your papa? He had his black-and-white phase when he was your age, wouldn’t let me dress him any other way for school. Oh, but he was a picture, my boy. Not so, Mikey?"

****

"Quite so." And Greg watches as one brother twists his elastic features into a Cheshire cat’s grin, and the other’s glare speaks daggers – speaks switchblades, stilettos and about every item recorded in Sherlock’s latest blog entry, _Knives I Have Met And The Idiots Who Held Them_. "The family _comic_ , you might say," Mycroft adds, opening the main door with a flourish for the little partridge to trot in, towing her pear-tree.

****

Greg himself comes more slowly, taking his time to savour the view before him. While Holm House is nothing like a castle, hasn’t been in the family for more than thirty years, and owes its name and existence simply to Zed Holmes being Britain’s number one space boffin, it stands out like an elephant in a porcelain landscape. Every time Greg tries to click it into his phone he fails, because while the house starts nice and easy, a pink-and-white family cottage, it suddenly leaps into a big mad _purple_ tower bristling with telescope ends and a topping glass veranda. Which is more than Greg’s Nokia can take.

****

"Come in, Greg! _Mon pauvre_ , you look absolutely exhausted. Driven all the way from London, not so?"

****

"Straight from Martha's Vineyard," Sherlock calls out over Greg’s shoulder as he steers his husband firmly inside. "Mrs Hudson, for reasons best known to her, insisted on celebrating Christmas Eve at her place. Miranda and I had to leave early, but I have it from a reliable source – one that ho-ho-hoed his way _twice_ up the stairs – that her kitchen walls were decked with, ah. Evergreen. "

****

Greg utters a dismal groan.

****

"Quick, quick then, inside with all of you. And, Greg, there’s hot coffee and cake." Mummie beams down on her son-in-law, still adorably cross-eyed and tuft-haired from his long car nap. "Are you aching from your bendover, dear?"

****

"Mummie!" Interestingly, Mycroft’s freckles are the only part of him that will blush under duress. Right now they’re taking on a martyred glow. "Some of us like to call it a _hang_ over."

 

**\---------------------------**

****

Inside is the Holmes’s living room, lively with the scent of freshwood burning in the fireplace and mingling with the smell of fresh coffee and cakes. There’s also – Greg takes off his gloves and gives himself up to the warmth of arrival – the fresh sensation that half of the wood has stepped up into the room and turned it into a foster home for its waifs and strays. Or black spruce and white pine, the Professor is telling Mia as he does every year, boxwood and dogwood, and can you name this one?

 

“ _Missile toes_! Papa put some up in our house too.” Mia’s gleeful statement is preceded by a rain of missile crumbs, while Greg thanks his stars that they are skipping Boxing Day at the Yard. Missile toes! Donovan would never let him hear the end of this.

 

“Almost, but not quite. It has pride of place here, my dear, because "Holm" is the old Celtic root for holly. Which makes us a winter people, and a rather prickly one” – Professor Holmes’s gaze drifts off toward his two sons – “but, going by the ancient books of symbols, the bearers of truth and a large store of magic.”

 

“Not all of us, Zed. _Maman_ , you remember M. Lestrade, Sherlock’s husband? He’s –”

 

“Do you want a glass of water?” Old Madame Vernet cuts in fiercely, wagging a centenarian finger.

 

“God, yes.” Greg looks around helplessly. “Um, coffee’s fine, though. Don’t bother, really.”

 

“Here.” A tumbler containing something dark and sticky red in it is waved under his nose. “Freshly miracled, flavour of the day. Drink up, and tell me if I should change it to Saint-Estèphe next time or stick to Merlot. Gotta keep abreast of the times, eh?”

 

Greg looks at the glass with unconcealed horror.

 

“Ta very much,” he manages. “But d’you mind if I wait till lunch? So I can appreciate it in the right, er. Spirit? Oh god.”

****

“ _That’s_ the right spirit. I knew you were a connoisseur!”

****

“I mean, it’s a bit early in the day. Morning. Morning-after. That is…”

 

“…Mia’s blackcurrant squash,” Sherlock avers tartly, deflecting the plastic glass’s course towards its rightful owner.

 

“Of course it is.” Mme Vernet, undeterred, rips out a sainted cackle. “It’s a _child-friendly_ miracle. Mycroft! Move over here, boy. We need to discuss mystical property rights.”

 

Mycroft doesn’t look very eager to move.

 

“He can’t hear you.” Sherlock glares maliciously from his chintz-covered armchair, where he crouches forward with both feet up on the seat. (Whoever introduced Sherlock to _Death Note_  during the Hiatus earned themselves a lifelong curse from Mrs Hudson.) “He’s too busy stuffing himself with cheesecake and playing big cheese to the rest of the world.”

 

“Attention please, everyone!” Mrs Holmes has risen and is clapping her hands. “You too, Puffin. Stop checking that phone, and stop teasing poor Muffin to the death. You know you’ve always wanted to – how is it you English say? – have his cake and hate it.”

 

The nice thing with Violette Holmes, Greg thinks, is that you never know when she’s doing it in purpose. The French accent is not a fake. Neither is the odd phrasing with its distinctive Gallic turn. But twenty-five years on the force have left him with a built-in alibi detector, and Greg suspects that half of Mrs Holmes’s mistakes are a clever way of pinning a few home truths on her genius sons. He raises his own cake to her in mute acknowledgement.

 

“So if you’re all rested and refreshed, Zed tells me there’s just enough time before lunch for a round of the Holmes Game.”

****

And with those cheerful words, a cosy pastoral English interior dissolves into chaos.

 

\---------------------------

 

Greg remembers asking John about the Holmes Game. He was forty-seven; John had been in the picture for eleven months, his reputation already established as Sherlock’s little gung-ho Jiminy Cricket. These were the pre-Mary, pre-Miranda days, when Lestrade was still living alone, and it was John that Sherlock had taken with him to Holm House to survive another Christmas dinner. And, as it turned out, another Christmas ritual.

 

“They don’t do it every year,” John had explained. “It’s part of the Game, I think. Sort of "lightning never strikes twice". Sometimes they have two in a row. Sometimes it can be years before they play it again. Sometimes the father waits until Easter to spring it on them. And there’s no telling how far it gets. You think Sherlock’s the only one who can turn a crime scene into a Mad Hatter’s Tea-Party? You wait until you’ve met his dad.” John’s eyes had crinkled with retrospective enthusiasm. “Best sodding Christmas I’ve ever had.”

 

“Yeah, but what’s it like? The Game?” And Greg had felt that tender, secret urge to know as much as he could of Sherlock-the-family-man. Because he’d felt the tide turn between Sherlock and he lately; felt himself give in to the grip of that turn, that wonderful, irresistible change in him from mentor to friend to close ally to... though it was all still very much underwater.

 

His companion had frowned pensively. “Well, it’s like…hmmm. Ever had a row with a pinball machine? Y’know, the tough old ones. The ones with actual _balls_.”

 

“Guilty as charged.” He’d bumped his latest pint to John’s. They’d both reached the stage where it would have been rather hazardous to bump shoulders.

 

“Ooookay. So, you launch that first ball nice and easy, aiming for the bumper, watching for the first flash-and-tingle…”

 

“…Yeah?”

 

“And the next thing you know, your ball has taken a bastard leap, smashed the glass pane, hit the bull’s-eye, broken the bank, murdered in the dark, married the king’s daughter and buggered the king’s son.” John had paused for a sip. “ _That’s_ the Holmes Game for you.”

 

\--------------------------------

 

Seven years and one missed round (spent in bed cradling his tiny new daughter) later, Greg feels a hot tingle of expectation. His team reflexes are kicking back in after a few years sans footie, even as Violette Holmes’s declaration is greeted by a rush of protests. Greg watches Sherlock shamelessly claim Miranda as an excuse, only to be outwitted by Miranda’s limpid ‘Can I play too?’

 

‘ _No_!’ half the room strikes back at various volumes.

 

Silence follows, with Greg fearing the worst. One of Miranda’s staunchest traits, ever since babyhood, has been her passionate thirst for inclusion. It’s not that she’s a conformist, he thinks. It’s just that she still possesses a child’s undiluted curiosity for life. One that doesn’t need any of their adult props, be they pocket-sized magnifiers or little men charging a little ball on a big screen. At six, Miranda simply wants to be on all the scenes. Ride all the rides. Bite all the apples.

****

And can be the perfect drama queen when denied some of those. Greg sighs inwardly and braces himself for a scene.

 

“Blue KerPlunkle,” Sherlock says quickly, while Miranda is still drawing her breath. She takes one look at him and miraculously deflates. _Blue KerPlunkle_ is one among a store of secret code words that Greg is not supposed to know about. He’s come to peg it as a rarely used but efficient red alarm, just as _Orange Pip-Pip_ usually boils down to ‘Eat my peas and I’ll do your sums for you’ and _Batty Khan’s Camels_ to ‘We’re both in bastard big trouble, and your turn to tell Daddy’.

****

“Oh, but you’re in, little partridge,” comes from a smiling Zed. “Only, I thought you might want to stay here and help me supervise the Game. You see, if the teams are stuck, they're each allowed one phone call – only one, mind – and _you_ will rescue them. Meanwhile, I'll let you deduce one of your presents, and if you succeed you can have it before lunch. How is that with you?”

****

Miranda thinks a little about it, head tilted - and behold, it is very good.

 

 

  
  
  



	6. Children, Go Where I Send Thee (2/3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this part of the 'verse is important to me because it speaks of family connections, past and present, it's turned out a much larger installment, so I've decided to post it in three chapters. Here's number two.
> 
> All my thanks to my wonderful beta, Grassle, and to everyone who has followed and commented on this 'verse so far.

11 : 02

In the highest room of the tall tower, a.k.a Professor Holmes’s home observatory, the captive clue dangles from one end of the tallest telescope.

(The higher end, obviously.)

"Remind me again why we’re doing this?"

"KerPlunked by your six year old," Mycroft retorts, hanging to Sherlock’s curls for dear life. Family may be all we have in the end, but it doesn’t help that they are both standing on his father’s observation desk, while he, after a fast and furious dialogue ( _Mycroft Holmes, hitch up your trousers!_ ) is sitting on his brother’s shoulders. At least he is not the Holmes with the dubious case history when it comes to heights. “I have a good mind to borrow her for my next NATO masterclass.”

"Not that. Why I’m the one stuck with you and your _astronomic_ behind, given that you’re at least four stones heavier than me, Muffin dear."

"Because" – Mycroft gives a cautious little wave in the clue’s direction. The clue dangles coyly on – "the Master of the Game thought it a sterling improvement on the 2003 edition to draw his bloody hopscotch all over the bloody _stairs_. Eighty-seven steps, in case you’ve forgotten, and now I have a blister."

"Well, don’t take bloody all day, then. Get me my clue!" Sherlock tries bouncing once or twice on the balls of his feet, then freezes to a full stop. "Do that again?"

"Only if YOU don’t," his brother gasps back, arms still flailing madly in the air. "Do…what?"

"That squeaky noise. I could swear I’ve heard it before."

"I have your clue, Sherlock. Would you kindly help me down now?"

"But that noise…"

"Oh, for God’s sake! Now is not the time to share a Proustian moment. You’re no longer a child, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m no longer welcome on your shoulders."

" _What?_ "

"The parrot." Mycroft’s throat tightens on the word, his eyes on the horizon line beyond the observatory’s glass roof. "You would throw a tantrum until I agreed to sit on your shoulder and let you call me Cap’tain Flint. I dare say I was a stone or two lighter back then, when it was all play and no hard feelings, and you fed me salted pork and apples from the ship’s barrel. Will you let me down, now?"

He expects no answer and gets none, but is surprised to find himself seized in a strong, safe grip and lowered down in one smooth arc of motion, until he is hovering two inches above the floor and can test the ground with his right foot.

 

"Pieces of eight," Mycroft croons softly as his brother releases him.

"Mycroft. I can’t – not during the game."

"No, no, not sentiment. That’s our clue, actually." And Mycroft shows him the unfolded message, its three words set across in the thick-lettered hand that once named the Basilic Cluster in a faraway galaxy and made England famous.

"The woods, then. Bloody Zed."

"Bloody Zed," comes the heartfelt echo as the brothers, leaning on each other, prepare to hop down all of the  eighty-seven steps.

\----------------------------

11 : 05

Miranda saunters up the front path. "Did you get it right?" she asks excitedly.

"’Course we did, sweetie.” Greg sweeps her up and bundles her under his thick coat the best he can, legs and all. “We took all the steps as required and buried the chocolate coins…"

"The gold coins," Mrs Holmes edits with a _pas devant_ shake of the head. Oh, Greg thinks. ’Course. Miranda may be one year shy of seven, with two hard-boiled detective dads, but she's still a child with a child’s straight instinct to trust fairy tales and dreams, and gold over foil. In his heart of hearts, Inspector Lestrade hopes that she will retain it longer than either Sherlock or he managed.

"The gold coins,” he says humbly, “having first waited until the sun was over the oak. Least I think it was. An oak. Was it?" Greg gives the clearing a doubtful look. "Bit hard to say when they’re all as bald as an Oi! band."

“But the shadow _was_ under the elm,” Mrs Holmes answers. “I know, because that’s where I go to pick the foxsocks in the Spring. You must come and visit us at Easter, Greg, and see the woods at their best.”

She winks at him, kindling a surprise echo of his forty-something husband at his most boyish – usually when battling Greg and the soup vegetables united for their half of their kitchen table. Greg smiles and says, ‘Oh, all right, then’ before delivering Miranda safely to the indoor warmth.

 

\---------------------

 

11 :12

 

“Come and sit with me near the fire,” the professor says, “and ask me anything you like. We’ll let others be wise and dig up all the answers, eh? That will be a nice break from school.”

 

“They want you to _say things_ all the time,” Miranda opines. She sticks her legs out from the deep armchair her grandfather has wheeled up for her and tries to align her green-stockinged feet, tilting them one way and the other while the professor admires the effect. “And when you do, they’re not happy at all.”

 

A warm, wrinkled hand falls on hers. “Don’t I know it! If they’re anything like my funding advisor, they pull a knot with their arms, very, very tight…”

 

“…yes! And” – Miranda burrows into the rich, untidy depths of a little girl’s memory satchel – “and they say ‘Miranda, you can’t be a colour when you grow up, please be serious’. But they did say I could be anything I like. And I like colours.” Miranda pauses in reflection, tilting both head and feet. “Only now I’d rather be a mermaid.”

 

“Quite right. Keep your colours flying – or swimming, I say. Take Big Mummie and I, we’re always tickled pink when you come and visit us. And your papa was a regular Blue Peter, long before he began to build up his own deductions.”

 

Miranda giggles. “Papa’s not a Peter.”

 

“Oh, but he was.” The professor bends forward to throw a pine cone into the fire, where it sizzles into a sharp fuse of sparks, muffling his next words. “William Sherlock Peter Pan Holmes. Until you came, little fairy, and sewed his shadow to a good man. Now, what about another biscuit?”

\---------------------------------

11 :23

 

Mycroft stares at his brother, aghast. “You’ve broken my umbrella!”

 

“Bent it, at most.” Sherlock gives the umbrella an unrepentant shrug. “It made a rotten probing rod in any case. And it’s hardly my fault if you can’t tell an elm from a pine tree. Whatever happened to ‘I’m a consulting omniscience, Sherlock’?”

 

“Actually…” And Sherlock watches as Mycroft’s gloved hand dips into his coat pocket. There’s the sound of a chocolate bar wrapper being torn off – one-handedly. “One thing I _do_ know is how to come prepared to a family do. Here.”

 

“Here what?”

 

“I’ll take the blame,” Mycroft says with a grand little wave of the wrist, and coats his upper lip area carefully with the Mars bar. 

 

Sherlock’s eyes light up, almost pellucid with curiosity. “That’s a bodhisattva moustache,” he says. “ I’ve only ever seen one like this before, and that was in the Dalai Lama’s reception room.”

 

“Well, that makes two of us. _Oh no you don’t_ ” – but the telltale buzz is too quick for the Consulting Omniscience, who can only glare while his brother pockets his phone again.

“Your detective inspector has a lot to answer for.”

 

11 : 26

 

“You have a lot to answer for,” Sherlock tells Greg. The two teams have just collided into each other and the first-floor bathroom.

“Naaaaah.” Greg’s smugness is forgivable, given that he is having his hand rather painfully dabbed with Dettol by Mrs Holmes. “Spotted every clue, scored every goal. Me, I know a thing or two about paper chases.” His grin widens. “’Course, on a regular working day, _I’_ m the one who gets chased.”

 

Mycroft’s groan overrides Sherlock’s.

 

“Mickey, why are you standing on one leg? We’re at home, dear. There’s no need to practice, whoever it is you’re planning to impress.”

 

“It’s not his Stork of Doom pose, Mother. He has a blister.”

 

“Oh, good. I was afraid he’d invited someone down for lunch – my roast will only serve seven. _Et voilà!_ ” Mrs Holmes smoothes the butterfly knot crowning Greg's bandaged hand. “Again, I apologise. It was very remiss of me to make the suggestion in the first place.”

 

“What suggestion?” Sherlock sides-and-narrows both eyes in his mother’s direction. “Not the Shrub Crawl, I hope? I thought we were all agreed to drop the Crawl after John wrestled that badger and had _me_ take a rabies test.”

 

“Oh, the unspeakable pain and horror of it…” Mycroft, one Oxford shoe hanging from his thumb and finger as he tries to moan his mother's attention back to himself.

 

“No, Puffin. Not the Crawl, I swear. But you know how we got first choice, after Greg’s king chased and beat your ass…?”

 

“His _ace_ , Mummie!” Mycroft’s freckles are on the brink of despair.

 

Mrs Holmes waves her firstborn’s blushes aside. “Hand over your foot, darling. Well, we chose Scavenger Spree and had great fun, really. Only, there was that last item on the list…”

 

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,“ Greg completes, reeling on his feet. Sherlock leans forward to sniff at his breath. “All in one, so we were in a bit of a fix. Blah blah ’ways something, eh, sunshine?”

 

“But then, boys – illumination came! Remember how your _Mémé_ always takes a little nap before lunch?”

 

The Holmes boys look at each other, their breaths slowly curdling to an identical stop.

 

“Greg Lestrade.” Sherlock’s voice is barely audible. “Please tell me you did _not_ try and scavenge my grandmother’s false teeth.”

 

“Only one of her spare sets,” Greg mutters. There are four of them, it appears, testifying to _Mémé_ ’s intention to provide the truly faithful with relics of herself after her death. Sadly for Greg, whose instincts as a detective and a gentleman made him take the first step into her darkened room, the precious items are not stored in her bedside tooth mug, as he first thought, but under her pillow. The mug itself contained…

 

“…a booby-, or should I say bobby, trap,” Sherlock infers in dry tones. Brandy, unmistakably. “In the shape of a mousetrap. Really, Mother, you’re as bad as Father. I’m supposed to bring him back to the Met in one piece, preferably sober.”

 

“’s all right, ’s all right,” Greg beams back. “Can’t feel a thing. And I’ve got the marks to show Zed! John was right – this is loads of fun. Wanna come back in the Spring with me? Eh, love? You can help index the foxsocks.”

 

“This is madness,“ Mycroft can be heard telling the white-tiled floor as Greg, yelling “On with the Game!”, leads Mrs Holmes out of the bathroom.

A rustle of cashmere: his brother sitting next to him on the bath edge, their snow-sodden shoes rubbing cheek to cheek.

“Some call it family, I believe.”

 

 


	7. Children, Go Where I Send Thee (3/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here's the final installment for the Christmas chapter.
> 
> I've inserted a few links to the original games which I've used for this fic. I wish I could have includee "Hunt the (Persian) Slipper", but 221B and Mrs Hudson probably have a monopoly on it!

11: 45

“Minnie McAllister says I was adopted.”

The whisper, confided to a green waistcoat pocket, stills the professor’s arm over the laptop which now shares his lap with his granddaughter. There is nothing in their animated chat, which has drifted from colour in space to cats in space, then colours in cats, then the odds of men being ruled by cats in twenty thousand light-years, and back to light and colour in space, that warranted such a comment.

But the professor does not allow himself to betray any surprise as he merely answers “Oh? That’s a pretty big say.”

“She said I can’t be Papa’s Mia because he has dark hair and I don’t. So I asked him, and he said once upon a time there was a monk who ate his peas and they proved that you can be mad if you’re a king and called Gene, and your grandson will be, but not your son, and it’s just the same with hair. And I told her next day, but then she said Daddy’s much too old anyway, and _her_ daddy said celebs will do anything to make themselves look good in the eye of the press, and then one of her friends  _laughed_ , and I’m not allowed to punch people who annoy me unless they’re trying to ab…to ab…to ab-duct me.” Miranda has to take a break and a mouthful of air. “So I kicked her instead.”

“Hmmm,” the professor says, with a guarded look into the next-room kitchen, where his wife and Greg can be seen bustling about with flour. “Well, I’ll give you a pass here, I think. There’s non-violence, and there’s constructive dialogue, and then there’s giving the nasty little piffler a swift one in the behind to pull her socks up. Nothing wrong with taking a shortcut to ethics.” The professor seems ready to spin forth his pragmatic thread when a thought makes him stop and consider.

“Did you tell your Papa what you’ve just told me?” he asks carefully.

The speaker shakes her head. “He does kickboxing,” she explains with rather admirable concern for the elder McAllister.

“Quite right.” A relieved Zed bends his head to kiss the bright copper-brown glory tucked under his chin. “My dear, if that very silly little girl can’t spot the Holmes fire when it’s under her nose, then there’s not much hope that her father would, unless he had it bashed right into his. You've done the honourable thing.”

“Fire?” Miranda looks down into the chimney, the last ghosts of doubt and pain melting into peaceful heat as she weighs her grandfather’s words against the rose-red embers. “I have fire?”

 

\-------------------

 

11: 52

“Flour?” Sherlock’s tone is more puzzled than outraged. “We have flour as our Final Problem?”

Mycroft, half draped over his brother’s shoulder, looks in turn around the kitchen. It certainly features a problematic amount of flour, equally shared between the floor, the work surface and a large serving dish. Inside the dish, the flour has been pressed into an enormous round shape, possibly using a pudding bowl, with a small metallic object carefully placed on the top.

“[Bullet Pudding](http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/bullet_pudding_and_snapdragon/).” Mycroft pokes the mountain with a reluctant finger. It shivers, and he quickly pulls his finger back. “With an actual bullet on top. An...Afghan one? Where on earth did they - anyway. We’re supposed to take turns doing this until the bullet drops to the bottom of the pile, much like the proverbial penny. And then…” He stops to frown under an onrush of connecting ideas. “Sherlock. You haven’t _possibly_ let on about that little insider job you’ve volunteered to do for me on the Balkan frontier? The two-month mission relying on your expert knowledge of heroi…cs?”

Sherlock looks a bit sheepish. “I might have told John,” he answers, one eye still on the kitchen table.

“Who told his wife. Who, on their latest bread-baking spree, may or may not have told your housekeeper. Whose connection with Mummie makes the Moscow-Washington hotline look like a pen pals’ slow post.” Mycroft sighs, preparing to remove his jacket. “Oh, brotherkin. Don’t you know by now that hell hath no fury like a mother’s veto? Better get on with it, then.”

“With what? What’s the worst that can happen?” Sherlock crosses his arms and scowls over at the white monolith. “It’s only _flour_.”

Mycroft shakes his head sadly and takes off his tie.

 

\-----------------

 

12 : 04

“Here, gimme.” Greg sweeps the pile of plates from his co-player’s arms and starts laying the table with the deftness that comes from long practice. Holm House’s heated veranda gives on to the back garden, where the winter sun is fountaining down from the winter sky, soft and white, like a bulb lit under a rice-paper lantern. “Christ, but that was epic fun. Are we the winners, then? Or does Zed keep scores on all of us?”

“Well, it’s not exactly like that.” Mrs Holmes places the last cube of cheese on the large platter where they are laid down to form triangles alternating with triangles of grapes, smaller and smaller as they get to the top, until the final design looks very much like Miranda’s drawings of a Christmas tree. There’s even a stalk of celery, cut lengthways to figure the tree trunk. “I think Zed would tell you that once the Game is over, and our boys come out of it, _everyone_ is a winner. You’ll see in a minute.”

“What, are they still doing that flour thing?”

“Oh, I hope so.” Mrs Holmes’s smile is very serene. “So tell me, Greg. How are things looking for you this year?”

“Same old same, pretty much.” Greg’s return smile is apologetic. “Once you’ve made it to DCI, it’s more of a desk job than anything else. But, well, they needed an inside man to make sure the job gets done and the human resources don’t get wasted, and while they don’t let you have the whip end of the rope, you still get to do your bit, if you get my drift. And then, there’s our lass. Gotta make time for her, y’know? Sherlock is home a lot, of course, but then he’s got his experiments and his cases, y’know? And it’s not like I want –”

“You want to be his pillow of strength.”

In the startled pause that follows, Greg reviews twenty years in a flash.

“Y...eah, you could say that. Always have, I guess. Even when I was more, like, his favourite pincushion.”

“Of course.” Violette Holmes nods understanding, her tall figure leaning over the table, threading red linen napkins through silver rings. “But sometimes, it’s good to have a little epic fun, hmm? And my Sherlock, he needs to know there’s a time for play and there’s a time for being a pillow, a family cushion, healthy and safe for his loved ones. It’s only the littl’uns who can travel safely through any space and dream, in the end. Not so? Ah, now we’re set. I’ll go and get my mother in a moment. An _apéritif_ for you, Greg?”

 

\--------------------

 

12 : 06

“Oh,” Miranda says, staring at the screen in utter delight. “Is it a space ship?”

“It’s called a space station.” The professor’s fingers brush over the keys, letting the huge glittering structure swivel slowly on the screen which it fills from corner to corner. “It doesn’t bring people to space, but it lets them stay there for a while and have fun. The Russians thought of it a long time ago, and they built it so that it looked like a dragonfly, look, with its wings open. They are solar panels, gathering the light of the sun into its heart, where it becomes fire and electricity. This is a new model, Miranda, bigger and more beautiful than the old one that had to be destroyed, and here's what it will be called by most people in most countries.”

“ _M…I…R_.” Two fingers, one thick and gnarled, the other slim and pink, retrace the signs one by one. “ _MIR-2_?”

“That’s what they’ll call it, yes. And the press, and the general public. But the people who made it needed a very small, very sharp piece of information at the time, and it so happens that I could give it to them, but on one condition. Look. Here’s a close-up on the solar panel, and here is its other name, which is written only once and in our language.”

The slim finger dances into play again.

 

\--------------------

 

12 : 09

“ _Guh-huh-urrgh!_ ”

With only the lightest twinge of deja vu, Mycroft Holmes stretches his (admittedly long) arm and drags his baby brother out of trouble. If not kicking and screaming, as on numerous past occasions, at least wheezing and spitting, and, by the time his nose has been reacquainted with oxygen, looking like a cross between an irate Marcel Marceau and a human Turkish delight.

Flour is _very_ clingy, and Mycroft has never felt so lucky to have a receding hairline.

“You need to stop breathing while poking about,” he instructs Sherlock. This is their fourth attempt to retrieve the elusive bullet between their teeth, with their hands clasped behind their backs, and the little pest just keeps burying itself deeper with each go. Sherlock’s nerves are fraying by the minute, not helped by the ominous tick-tock of the oven as it times Mummie’s roast pork. “Or you’ll choke.”

“How can I stop breathing and _not_ choke?” Sherlock snaps back. Then sneezes. “Oh god. It’s 2011 all over again, isn’t it? At least they’re not making us whack each other with rolled-up newspapers.”

The brothers share a communal shudder at the memory of 2011. Neither Holmes parent had taken kindly to Sherlock’s death and resurrection, nor to Mycroft’s decision to aid and abet them without consulting the rest of the family. Both had made their displeasure very clear in the following edition of the Game.

“[ _Are You There, Moriarty?_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_you_there,_Moriarty%3F)” Mycroft quotes with a grimace. “You’d think Father at least would have shown a little more tact.”

The pasty-faced creature at his side nods wildly, shaking more flour into the air. “I couldn’t use my magnifier for a week after you hit my eye!”

“ _I_ had to conduct a video conference with Beijin and a triple-sized nose.” Mycroft’s voice is vibrant with outrage. “Bloody Zed.”

Waiting for an echo that never comes, he finds himself instead listening to a high-pitched little wheeze. Mycroft’s concerned gaze flies to his brother’s face, but there’s no cause for alarm: Sherlock is giggling. Positively giggling. Physical exhaustion, Mycroft tells himself wisely, but already his chin is quavering, his treacherous muscles loosening up, and the next giggle is met half way by his own helpless bray.

This is too much for Sherlock, who sags against the table and dissolves into a jelly of giggles until they are spilling out of his eyes, making an even worse mess of his face.

Which, inevitably, has Mycroft gasp like a goldfish and thump his fist down on the tabletop – with dire and floury consequences.

When they catch their breaths again, after what seems like eons, the brothers search each other's eyes.

“Is it like this, then?” Mycroft muses aloud. There’s a touch of peace in the air, softly palpable, like the white dust hovering about. He waits, tries again. “The watch, the vigil? The joy, every time you make it in time between the stone and the gashed knee, the wolves and the pillow, the nasty words and the tears? The joy, because to them you’re the god who holds all the answers? And then, the knowing that one day you’ll have to stay on the roadside, your hand free and empty, not sure they’ll even look as you try to wave them over to the safe side of the street? Tell me, Sherlock. Is that what it feels like?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer at once and when he does, being Sherlock, doesn’t answer straight. But his clutch on Mycroft’s arm softens into a press - a presence.

“You should know.” 

Mycroft waits; Sherlock sighs.

“All right, then. John wouldn’t come, anyway. Inconvenient, he said, with that Look of his. As if I’d no business being bored with home, which I’m not. It’s just…it’s …the danger is still out there, Mycroft. And it’s so easy, telling myself it’s just a little fix. One more ride for old thrills’ sake, just to see if I can still force the odds to play my game.”

“Shhhh.” Mycroft gives the hand on his arm a stiff little pat. “I know. I know. And shouldn't have made the offer in the first place. I – apologise, brother.”

Sherlock, still intent on being Sherlock, doesn’t heed him.

“But even with every chance on my side…even then, every chance is not all the chances, I know. I _know_. There’s still a chance that I might not come back this time. And when I think of it – not of their grief, which doesn’t bear thinking about, but of all the things I’d never know, never experience again, all the, the – home thrills. Yes. Never catch Greg squeezing his toothpaste out from the middle of the tube, as he _always_ does, or Mia saying ‘cloud’ when she’s trying to say ‘loud and clear’, she does that, you know, blurs her words together when they’re too slow for her, and it _is_ a creative move, whatever the idiots at her school –”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft cuts in. “Don’t say another word. To me, that is.”

This time, Sherlock does listen. Then nods again, as his mobile leaps smoothly into his hand.

“I can’t do it, Mycroft. I’m sorry, I –”

“It’s all right, _Brüderlein_. We’ll just have to scrub this plan – and about everything else in this room before Mummie returns. Now make your call.”

 

\------------------

 

12 : 12

“Ah, there it rings.” Mrs Holmes rises from her seat, ever the gracious hostess. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll just go and check on my roast.”

“Living on bread alone,” Mémé mutters, though Greg can see her wizened hand reach out for the dish. He makes a dive for the cheese before she can, then remembers the bandage on his hand and fights a conscious blush.

“A stigmatic?” Mad Mémé asks, peering at him as if to inspect a potential rival.

“Nope, ma’am.” Greg’s grin is for himself as well. “Just unobservant.”

 

\-------------------

 

12 : 12

“Ah, there he rings.” The professor glances down at his phone screen with satisfaction. “Your papa, my dear, which means we’ve officially reached endgame. Yes, son?”

“Papa!” Miranda struggles up on her grandfather’s lap, trying out her loudest pitch for good measure. “There’s a fire station in space and it’s got my name on it! Big Daddy showed it to me, and the letters are all in gold, and they say _MIRANDA_ , and also there’s fried potatoes for lunch. Are you coming?”

“I’m forfeiting.” Sherlock’s voice is quiet, but firm. “Be sure to tell Mother, will you? Yes, Mia, I’ll be there with you in a minute. You can have my share, if you like – and if you’re good enough not to let Daddy see you.”

“Game over,” the professor answers just as quietly. “And, Sherlock? Well played, son.”

 

\--------------------

 

12 : 17

Greg is leaning back in his chair, glass in hand, one strand of hair falling and silvering over his eyes and the early winter tan that always catches up with him, no matter how many hours he spends indoors. The sun-sight catches Sherlock by surprise, kindles an old, familiar beat in his veins; the beat that is sometimes given back to him in the late hours, when he anchors himself to Greg’s body prior to love or sleep, Greg’s hand so tight around his that it lets Sherlock feel his own pulse.

“What?” Greg asks while Mr and Mrs Holmes file in with the roast, Miranda trotting in attendance. He squints down at his glass. “It’s water!”

“Then it’s mine.” Sherlock’s long fingers close upon Greg’s and the glass, raising it to his lips despite Greg’s weakening resistance.

“But I’m driving us back,” his husband protests, while Miranda clambers on the chair next to Sherlock.

“No, you’re not. _I_ ’m taking the wheel.” And Sherlock, having set the glass next to his plate, grabs the large bottle of wine with the filigreed label in French. He fills Greg’s new glass to the brim, and then, to Greg’s incredulous blink, his brother's.

“Hear, hear,” the professor booms. “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good…”

“…appetite,” his wife chimes in with a smile. “Tuck in, everyone! Yes, you too, Sherlock. I’m not letting you take the road again on two grapes and a cube of cheese.”

“I’ll have some more potatoes, if I may,” Sherlock says demurely.

Sometimes, Miranda thinks, her head happily burning with stars and rich smells and the adult talk ebbing and flowing among the colorful table things, and the still brighter promise of _P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S_  on the horizon, happiness is people. Not always. Not every day. But today is definitely one of the sometimes.

 

 

 

 


	8. Miranda and the Age of Reason (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's seven! And everyone else is striving to keep up with her...
> 
> Written as a series of twelve 221b to practice with a shorter form. A few slots are still empty for the July-December part: if you guys have any wishes for this 'verse, don't hesitate to prompt me! Prompts are fun.:)

**January**

“Sometimes, all it takes is a funny face,“ Papa told her on their latest Milk-and-Principles-of-Life session. “Or soulful gaze. No, Mia, that gaze rightfully belongs to a mole blind-dating a buzzard. Try again.”

After two soulful gazes and the funny-face that made Daddy ask if his casserole was too spicy for her, Miranda chucks empathy and options blitz tactics.

* * *

 “No.” And Sherlock proceeds to shut the door on John’s toecap, wedged in as firmly as the Disney DVD under his elbow.

“Oh, it’s the doggy one.” Greg inspects the offering mildly. “Sure, why not. Sherlock?”

“Papaaaaa?”

“…I was promised a _Happy_ New Year.”

* * *

 “Bloody hag. Why don’t those two apply for a restraining order?“

“Shhhh!“

“Knew it.“

* * *

 “ ‘Scotland Yard flummoxed’?! Bullshit. Pull DeVil in forty-eight hours, check her -“

“Dad-dy!“

“ _Knew_ it." 

* * *

 “It’s called DeVil Manor! And no one bloody looked into it? Who wrote that bloody script, bloody Gregson?“

“Goddamnit, Greg! “ 

* * *

“ _Criminals on a telly show?!_ What are they fucking trying to tell our kids?“

“Dad-dy! Swearword! “

* * *

 “It’s been a hard day’s night, “ Sherlock explains three Scotches and one cocoa later. “And he’s been working like a –“

“Shhhh! “

“He’ll be sleeping like a log. Put it on again, Mia, I want to see the daring escape. Hanged for a pup, hanged for a blood…hound.“

 

**February**

_We should never have agreed. SHL_

_She’s an age when a child’s novice psyche is all too exposed to obsolete societal norms. SHL_

_Not to mention tooth cavities. SHL_

_Run deep in the family. SHL_

Happy Valentine to you too, sweetheart.

Sweettooth, I mean.

_Greg. Oblige me by considering this without resorting to Met-brand, terminally inane levity. SHL_

Got me to a T, sweettooth.

We talked about this. They’re being chaperoned by Mrs Hudson and the boy’s mother. At the Haribo Kiddies’ Emporium.

Tummyache aside, what’s the worst that could happen?

_She’s too young for this. SHL_

She’s almost seven.

_The boy is almost nine. SHL_

Yeah, that totally makes him a sugardaddy.

_He’s just given her a card. With a heart on it, anatomically specious and drawn with second-hand felt pens handed down by a brother with adenoids. This forebodes disaster. SHL_

Awwwwww. Look at that jealous papa.

Wait. You’re not at the Emporium, right?

Holy smoke. You’re at the Emporium.

Hope for your sake you didn’t take Mr Snugglebat with you. Or Miranda’ll spot you a mile away and I won’t bail you out.

_Will you stop calling my coat Mr Snugglebat. SHL_

Put it on and join me, then. Roses are red, violets are blue, the game is on – come be my sleuth, and bring me a bonbon.

 

**March**

First, it all goes well.

The glass tower is the very model of a model Miranda-friendly dream. It shines like Queen Elsa’s palace and, once inside, keeps filling with noise and people and Aunt Sally, laughing at the sight of Miranda solidly encased in Daddy’s revolving-chair. "You’ve been here before," she says, which is grotty because it really took today for Miranda to clinch her dream and see his workplace.

But now there’s no one. Only the emptiness growing in and around her since Daddy went to fetch them elevenses. 

* * *

 "My, my," the man says in a scraggly voice. Like his beard, which seems of two minds about growing up or down. "Constables get younger every day."

Miranda faces him staunchly. "I’m getting _older_ today. Is Aunt Sally here?"

The man smiles. His eyes forget to. "Not since ages, kid."

"I’m Miranda," she says because of his sadness, which suddenly makes him trustworthy. "I’m looking for my Daddy; he got lost looking for the drinks. Can you help?"

  

* * *

 

"Miranda!" Daddy stands outside the lift, arms folded, his hair all upsy-daisy. "I _said_ – " 

But Miranda, Papa’s girl too, puts first things first and turns to her deliverer. "Thank you for helping me find my way out."

"Any time," Philip Anderson says, his face softening into a new, almost shy aliveness. "And, Miranda? Happy birthday."

 

**April (prompted by My-Citrus-Pocket)**

"Okay, _don’t_ gimme.” Greg’s smile is unimpeachably warm, but on the thin end of teasing. “I can do this. It’s for a case…”

"Obvious-"

"….and you’re consulting Lucifer." A conjugal pat of approval. "You go, sunshine. When in a spot, say I, ask a hotshot."

 _"What_? Please, I’m –”

"- caught red-handed with an egg, a needle and a candle. Indicative, sweetheart. _Very_ indicative.”

Sherlock merely dignifies this with a wrinkled nose. The intended stigma would be more effective if it wasn’t for the magenta blob at the end of the scrunch.  On the Richter scale of charm, it makes Sherlock a strong 5 – a juvenile, slightly clownish, irresistible 5.

 _"_ Pysanka,” (1) he finally obliges. Then catches Greg’s ‘Gesundheit’ mouthing and sighs. "The Polish Embassy case. Poisoning by beeswax. What d’you think?"

Greg observes the evidence. It is hot pink, with polka dots where Sherlock has dropped the wax with pinpoint accuracy before painting it, and stands in nine identical editions. Greg’s favorite egghead is looking at him, and he too seems a little pink and hot under the shirt collar.

"Well spotted," Greg nearly says from the bottom of his mischievious soul. But there’s more to the evidence. All over the tabletop: a clutter of small fingerprints – pink, muddled, evidently _thrilled_.

Greg holds the egg and answers from the heart.

"Brilliant."

 (1) Pysanka: in Poland and other Eastern European countries, the traditional Easter eggs decorated with wax batik motifs.

 

**May**

 

"What’s that?"

Uncle Mycroft, who has just taken his hands off her eyes, looks horrified 

"That," he tells her in his I’m-the-adultest-adult-that-ever-adulted voice, "is England."

"England’s a _country_." And here’s a monster green lawn, with a monster yellow house that looks trapped between two mirrors. In Miranda’s Bright New Age, fact beats tact any day.  

Before them, people are queuing out of a white tent. Uncle M. glides up to the black-and-white men, saying "Serve this young lady".

"England," he starts again when Miranda’s cheeks are puffed with scone and squash, precluding any further assault on the adult metonymy, "is much more than a country. England is... is... coming over to us." 

And with that, Uncle Mycroft leaps to his feet.

"Mr Holmes. And is this our future consultant?"

Miranda ducks her chin, mesmerized. She wants to be a bus driver, but England is wearing the bluest, boldest, best-coloured coat ever, and there’s no arguing with that.

"Do give your father my regards. He’s probably forgotten it, but in his younger days, when your uncle brought _him_ to visit us, he and I played in these very gardens."

Uncle Mycroft smiles. "How could he delete that, Your Majesty."

The Queen turns to leave. Then she looks over her shoulder and, miraculously, winks at Miranda.

" ‘Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear...’"

 

**June (prompted by Impishtubist)**

 

They wake up too early, their bed window still half cloudy from the summer night. Tuck into each other’s rest again, Sherlock’s nose burrowing into the dip of Greg's throat, seeking the notes of thyme, lavender and muzzy warm pulse that always put him to sleep.

Sherlock once (and once only) told Greg about Serbia and the scent of wild thyme that leaked through the slats of his prison hut. It kept the last recess of his mind alive, he explained while Greg held him, their cheeks kissing, wet and slippery; Greg's fingertips to the welts on Sherlock’s back, Sherlock’s pain zone, their breathing heavy with saliva and grief.

That was then. _Now_ is their breaths catching up on each other idly. Now is the sun on their pillow, picking up the new, needle-thin strand of grey in Sherlock's hair that he says makes him glad.

Sherlock will enter the kitchen clad in the pajama bottoms that always sag a bit around his hips. They will yawn, brush each other across the room, Sherlock dipping his head cat-like to rub his forehead against the soft-worn sleeve of Greg’s bathrobe.

Summertime, to be carved into a niche of sensations as gentle as Sherlock’s mouth pressed to Greg's neck. Coffee half-ground, sleep half-dismissed...until their child trots in asking, "But – where’s breakfast?"


	9. Miranda and the Age of Reason (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The series concluded, though August and December ended up bursting at the seams. Shhhhhhhh. Enjoy!

**July**

"Are you ever – puzzled?"

In the peak of July, with only a touch of cloud gathering in the sky, they repair his father’s beehive. The swarm hangs from a nearby fence, half-rocked by the breeze into their solstice nap.

Dick Lestrade (Richard to his wife, BeeBop to his granddaughter) peers at him over the golden rim of his glasses.

Greg’s paint brush loiters along the wood, leaving a brown, sun-freckled trail. "About me," he says. "Me and Sherlock. You never pitched into it like you did when I gave up on Sue. But –"

His word are left hanging on. Here is not London, where every move comes hard upon the last. Here, even Sherlock spends whole afternoons squatting over the farm pond, stalking a bright new world of bacteria for his microscope.

Dick Lestrade’s eyes turn to the swarm, his smile as quizzical as Sherlock’s when Mia came back yesterday with a gnat bite on her ankle and a toad in her cupped hands, dubbed Trevor and her new best friend.

"Ladies Only. Hardly a poster team for tradition, eh?"

"..."

"But they’re good workers. Guardians. Make honey far into the Fall. D’you think I ask to see their marriage licence, son?"

The wind plays; the golden lullaby carries on.

"Like I told that husband of yours. They teach you wise, the bees."

 

**August**

The five o’clock light pours into the living-room, burning a pure white fringe all around the Lady where she sits in Papa’s chair.

When it’s concert night and Molly comes to look after her, she cooks chips for two. She tells Miranda stories about her cat Toby, who likes to sleep in a tam-o’-shanter and only eats fish on even days. And she only scrunches her bottom a little when Miranda asks what if liver looks olive or verdigris (because a thing should definitely look like a thing sounds, even if it doesn't, most of the time).

But all the Lady does is tickle her phone. And – sin of sins, well beyond atonement in Miranda’s little black book – she looks the spitting image of Minnie McAllister’s Posh Spice doll.

"Well, Miranda. What shall we do?"

"Well, Miranda," comes the prompt answer. "What shall we do?"

There will be fire and thunder from Daddy tomorrow, but she’s not in a mood to care.

The Lady smiles a little. Then she speaks the exact same words again.

On the third round it's beginning to sound as if _she_ were repeating Miranda, which is vilely unfair.

 "…You have a choice," she says next, after defeat has been sealed with a glowering look. "But I’ll put it to you once and once only. You can trust me and play along. Or you can book yourself the dullest, yawniest evening since MI6 saw the light and introduced Budget debriefings. Do you receive me, Miranda?"

 _Loud and clear_ , Miranda thinks back – but that is when her arch-enemy, coiled under her tongue, lashes out thickly. "Cloud," she blurts out, and feels a hot tide of stupid rise to her face.

"Now that," Miss Anthea says, "I can work with."

* * *

 

The clouds are round-edged and everywhere, and almost at arm’s length. Deep down below, the ground huddles London like a flock of small pink and white sheep. There’s tea and cakes and fat, creamy little sandwiches – eyed doubtfully at first, but the balloon has been on its best behaviour so far.

‘Are you a princess?’ Miranda asks after Anthea finishes telling her phone _no cabs and a level-4 jam on the Covent Garden axis, cheers_. Once upon a time, she’d have gone for the money shot and dared "Are you a fairy?". But the Age of Seven comes with its load of obligations, one of which is to renounce such stuff as dreams are made of.

(...Up to a point.)

"Only by proxy." But Anthea’s smile is more soft-hearted than it sounds. "And only for one hour past bedtime." 

 

**September**

The Great Baker Street Switcheroo, as it will later be known, is Mrs Hudson’s idea. Miranda comes in as sidekick, colour consultant and hip deputy.

" _So much_ Sha Chi." Mrs Hudson side-eyes the skull. "The attacking influx, dear. Atrocious. Hand me the daisy crown?."

"The book says you have to ground the staircase’s energy, or it gets unsettling," Miranda reads out. "Is that why Papa fell down yesterday?"

"Well, dear, I suspect it’s more because he tripped on his own slippers shooing off your uncle...Never mind. Your Papa is more likely to unsettle the furniture than the other way round. What else?"

"We need a water element."

"My pufferfish!" Mrs Hudson says triumphantly. "Now help me bin all these dry old insects, and then we can think _red_."

"…Oh," Mrs Hudson says less triumphantly. Painting the sofa all over has taken its toll of Sha Chi. "Well, I’m sure it will look splendid with another coating. And now..."

Once Sherlock’s crime wall has been relocated to the ‘privy’, as Mrs Hudson still calls it, and replaced with an outsized still of a grinning baby, they take a well-deserved break.

"And now?"

"We enjoy the positive energy..." Mrs Hudson’s ear perks to the eruption of foosteps up the stairs. Well, dear Sally could only keep them busy so long. "…and wait for the blow-up."

 

**October**

A puddled day, his Nan used to call them.

An overcoat day, in and out under the drizzle to thrash crime with crime officers, security with (debatably) Human Resources, and the CO’s latest brief with his secretary (thus called because of all the cussing she gets to hear, but keeps mum about).

Until Greg crashes into his office for a quick one with sugar and a lick of Red Bull (Toby’s recipe, not for the faint of heart) and finds a pumpkin on his desk.

White, round, enormous. Its flesh scooped out and replaced by Lestrade’s old lighter - the one he thought had gone AWOL, because that’s what lighters do in their household (and potato-peelers and Miranda’s hairbands, one at a time). Its sides peppered here and there with small nicotine patches inked over.

At six p.m., Greg’s day is actually taking a turn for the clearer.

"…The Addidas Tango? Sweetie, that’s genius!"

"Tell that to the school committee." Sherlock’s voice vibrates with disgust. "First prize went to a Halloween _bunny_."

"Yeah, well, this scores the Lestrade-Holmes Referee Award." Greg rises. "It’s _squashing_. Let’s take it to Pizza Hut to celebrate, eh loves?"

…And here it comes, that naughty enchanting one-sided dimple.

"Lead on, Inspector. It’s a vegs bust!"

 

**November (prompted by Pocketbookangel, with a wink at sir Arthur)**

"Coo-ee!" says the desk nurse, a slightly off-kilter variant of her usual greetings, which tend to orbit between "Hi", "Wait", "Next-of-kin", " _Lower_ , please" and "Wait". But the man in the singed blue scarf won't let her improvise further.

"Gregory Lestrade. Fifty-six, five feet seven, cordovan eyes, French grey hair, mesocephalic head, superficial head trauma, room number, _now_."

"But –"

"Deaf, dumb or doubly afflicted? _Now,_ nurse."

Behind Sherlock, John knots an eyebrow (recently ash blond, now verging on full ashy).

"Just tell him the number, willya? His mind’s gone tits-up."

"207...," she tells Sherlock’s retreating back. "...you sweet clotpole."

* * *

 

"You said you were going to Blackheath so I’d believe you were going to Norwood. ‘Course you went to Blackheath. Cripes. Do I sound like a Jewish joke?"

‘You had no business getting to Blackheath first. Even less getting backed into a window-pane _just when John was lighting that hay_."

"We're lucky it was old glass, Mary said. Double-glazing..."

"That was Mary at the desk?"

"…Oh, you. Give us a kiss."

"Only if _you_ tell Dimmock how we ended up burning down the evidence and nearly making a guy of Mr Oldacre."

"Roylott, Smith, Oldacre… Time to launch a new blog, sunshine:  _Worst old men I’ve ever bagged."_

"Only –" A sooty caress, given as claimed. "– after I'd bagged myself the best."

 

**December (prompted by General Buttons - don't hate me)**

This isn’t by far the oddest stakeout in John’s store of Sherlock-related stories which, like the magical purse or barrel in the old folktales, keeps replenishing itself. It is, however, the first that has made it necessary for them to grow identical beards and laugh maniacally for six hours running. John’s initial suggestion that they hire Anderson as a private tutor did not endear him to his co-staker.

"You know…,"  he begins, then stops to roar ‘HO HO HO’ at the top of his lungs. The resulting sound-wave is enough to awe the bunch of snickering teens into a safer distance. "It's been wild fun and I can’t wait to see who is coming to retrieve the Bolivian gold bars from the Wonka shelf. But ten years ago, you would have shot that case down to a 5."

"Ten years ago –," Sherlock says, and leaves it at that.

John’s shoulder touches his in soft, unspoken understanding.

"Yeah. I know. Well, I’d better consult you pronto, then."

Sherlock turns to consider his best friend, puzzled. Then his gaze drops to John’s left hand and he freezes.

"Damn." John looks down in synch. "Forgot to put it back. Yeah, we made the test the moment she told me. It’s a girl."

"John. You do know that the ring’s motion is actually caused by your own heartbeats, which are transmitted to it along the hair, or piece of thread, to which the ring has been tied?"

"All I know is I’m going to have a –" But John’s leap has already taken him half way across the aisle. A moment later, two Fathers Christmas are kneeling down on a beardless (though red-faced) and rather vociferous customer. "- _baby_. Not you," he adds for their quarry's benefit.

‘Oh,’ Sherlock says, for once bereft of words. They have been trying so hard, John and Mary, and for so long now. He doesn’t quite know what to say, but since he loves them both, and John is shining like Hanukkah in the flesh, he tries his best. ‘That, um. That thing that you did. I’m certain you got it right.’

"And we want you – yes, señor Vargas, _him_ – to be her godfather. Tit for tat, mate."

"Oh," Sherlock says again, while John twinkles on with Christmas mirth, New Year’s resolution and Candlemas's entire set of lights all rolled into one. He can feel how the glow catches on, how it warms the two of them body and soul. "Yes. Yes. That’s...even better."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have often wondered if I should get back and continue this series, but I find that it ends on a good note for everybody involved. So, after due consideration, I think I'll just leave my little redhead and her extended family here. Belated thanks for anyone who has read and enjoyed this, and more than thanks for Grassle, the best of betas. I was lucky to have her and to benefit from her creative wisdom through my whole spell in the Sherlock fandom.


End file.
